


Fictober 2018

by myrtlebroadbelt



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Baby Bilbo Baggins, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fictober, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-07-27 17:58:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16224338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrtlebroadbelt/pseuds/myrtlebroadbelt
Summary: A collection of ficlets originally posted on Tumblr, inspired by various prompts for Fictober 2018.1. "Can you feel this?"2. "Will that be all?"3. "No worries, we still have time."4. "You shouldn't have come here."5. "Who could do this?"6. "Go forward, do not stray."





	1. "Can you feel this?"

**Author's Note:**

> See all the Fictober 2018 prompts [here](http://barbex.tumblr.com/post/178393189908/a-list-of-prompts-for-october-write-something).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/post/178684120487/fictober-2018-day-one-can-you-feel-this).

“Can you feel this?”

Bungo was on his hands and knees, scrubbing away at the parlor hearth, when Belladonna’s voice cut through the quiet behind him. He let out a startled shout and thumped his head on the brick.

“I felt _that_ ,” he grumbled, rubbing his scalp as he straightened up to face her.

Without a word, Belladonna reached down to take his hand, and before he could protest that it would ruin her dress, she placed his sooty palm flat against her belly — which, it should be mentioned, was swollen with five months of pregnancy.

Bungo sighed. They had been through this routine all month — Belladonna sneaking up on him when he was reading or cooking or using the bathroom. Each time, she would grab his wrist and ask if he could feel the baby moving.

And each time, Bungo would wait for a kick that never arrived. He would shrug and suggest “maybe next time,” or “perhaps we should get a lock for that door,” and Belladonna would grow ever more frustrated, assuring him that shehad just felt it not ten seconds before, and if he would just wait a little longer…

They had started sitting side by side at the dinner table so he could keep his hand on her belly while they ate, in the hope of catching it unawares. Bungo tried not to be offended that it only seemed to move for its mother.

He expected the current attempt to be no different, but he knelt there patiently nonetheless, feeling nothing but the rise and fall of his wife’s breathing.

And that’s when it happened. 

Just as he was about to give up and return to scrubbing, he felt something. It wasn’t what he had expected — not a kick or a shift but a long, rolling vibration against his fingers. He swore he could almost hear it.

“That’s it!” Bungo sprang to his feet and held Belladonna by the shoulders, turning her sleeves just as sooty as her skirt. “I’ve felt it! It’s finally happened!”

Belladonna didn’t say anything, only wrinkled her brow and tilted her mouth as if she were about to cry. Her lip trembled, and Bungo pulled her into his arms, soothingly rubbing soot onto her back.

“I know,” he cooed, tears prickling the corners of his own eyes. “That’s our baby.”

At that, Belladonna burst into sobs. “No, it’s not,” she wailed.

Bungo, thinking he had misheard, pulled away to look at her. “Pardon?”

Her frown was so deep it threatened to pull the rest of her face down with it. “That wasn’t the baby,” she hiccuped. “I missed second breakfast.”

She buried her face in her hands and continued to cry, while Bungo stood blinking, trying to come to terms with the fact that he had just become teary-eyed over his wife’s rumbling stomach.

“Right,” he said at last with a sniff, and patted her on the arm before turning toward the kitchen. “I’ll put the bacon on.”


	2. "Will that be all?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/post/178744886282/fictober-2018-day-four-will-that-be-all).

“Will that be all?”

Bungo eyed the bouquet of chrysanthemums and goldenrods in the florist’s hand and hesitated. “Perhaps we can add something more. What do you recommend?”

The florist, a smiling woman with a daisy tucked behind her ear, grasped her chin in playful contemplation. “That depends … are they for a lady?”

“I hardly think that’s any of your business,” Bungo said, glancing around the market to be sure no one was staring. “But if you must know … yes, they are.”

“My goodness, how exciting! What’s the occasion? Wait, don’t tell me.” She squinted at Bungo for a moment, then gasped. “Oh, it’s a proposal! I can tell. I can always tell.”

He didn’t respond either way, although the color of his cheeks likely gave him away. “Why don’t we add a sunflower or two?“ he suggested, hoping to move things along.

The florist did as he asked, mumbling to herself about how many proposals she had helped along just this week, and making Bungo feel rather unoriginal. As she was cutting a white ribbon to tie around the stems, someone spoke up behind him.

“Excuse me, sir, will you be much longer? I really must get this bouquet.”

Bungo tensed at the sound of the voice, which he recognized from the very first syllable. He turned to face the impatient customer.

“Hello, Belladonna.”

She was already smiling at him. “Hello,” she said, and wasted no time gesturing to the flowers. “And who are these for?” 

“Oh, these?” said Bungo, as if he had just remembered where he was. “These are for … my mother. She’s ill in bed, and I hoped to cheer her up.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” said Belladonna, leaning over to examine the bouquet. "The colors are so pretty. But might I suggest just a few sprigs of baby’s breath, for balance?”

“What splendid idea!” said the florist, who either hadn’t heard Bungo’s lie or had chosen to go along with it  — he assumed the former.

When the bouquet was done, Bungo dropped a handful of coins on the table and bade a hurried farewell to Belladonna, before diving into the surrounding crowd with the bouquet as a battering ram — ready to present it to his perfectly healthy mother and devise a new plan.

He was still within earshot when Belladonna greeted the florist.

“Yes, good afternoon,” she said. “I intend to ask a handsome gentleman to marry me today, and I was wondering what type of bouquet you would suggest.”

Bungo lost his balance and had to grab onto a stranger’s lapel to save himself. He apologized to the confused hobbit, helping him brush chrysanthemum petals off his jacket.

When Bungo turned around, he found that Belladonna had already moved to meet him. As he attempted (without success) to form a coherent sentence, she took the slightly rumpled bouquet from his hand. “I thought I would save you the trouble,” she said with a shrug, and leaned up to kiss him.

The florist, sobbing with happiness, threw half her inventory at them.


	3. "No worries, we still have time."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/post/178823633552/fictober-2018-day-seven-no-worries-we-still).

“No worries, we still have time.” **  
**

Bungo looked at his watch as Belladonna once again turned the key in the ignition. He couldn’t decide whether to feel horrified that the car had broken down on their way to Bilbo’s school play, or relieved that he no longer had to grip the dashboard as his wife laughed in the face of the speed limit.

“You call fifteen minutes _still time_?” said Bungo, who had wanted to leave an hour ago.

Belladonna cursed under her breath as the engine sputtered again. “Oh, you know these things never start on time.”

“That’s what you say every time we go to the cinema, and I always miss the trailers.”

“I can’t believe I married the only person in the universe who sulks about missing film trailers,” said Belladonna, opening the door and pulling off her high-heel shoes. “I suppose we’ll just have to walk.”

Bungo was about to say something about the dangers of walking barefoot when all at once Belladonna let out a victorious cry and lunged into the road, waving her arms in front of an approaching car.

“What are you doing? You’ll get yourself killed!” he shouted, scrambling out of the passenger seat and attempting to pull her away as the other car — an aged estate wagon — came to a rolling stop in front of them.

The driver’s side door opened, and a wiry grey head emerged. “Good evening! Looks like you could use a lift,” said Gandalf, smirking through his beard, and suddenly walking two miles barefoot didn’t seem so bad to Bungo.

“Isn’t this lucky?” Belladonna chirped as she put her shoes back on and opened the passenger side door. This left Bungo stuffed into the back seat, surrounded by crates of what looked to be illegal fireworks. 

The car idled for a moment as Gandalf fiddled with the radio dials and lit his pipe, rolling down the window to blow smoke rings into the darkening evening.

“We don’t want to be late,” Bungo said, politely but pointedly.

Gandalf glared at him in the rear-view mirror. “I am never late, Bungo Baggins,” he said, putting the car in drive. “I always arrive precisely when I mean to.”


	4. "You shouldn't have come here."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/post/178898854787/fictober-2018-day-nine-you-shouldnt-have-come).

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Bungo said through the open door. “It is entirely unrespectable for me to entertain young ladies at this time of night, especially when they have not been invited and gave no prior notice of their arrival. Now be gone, and mind the petunias on your way through the gate.”

Belladonna grinned at him across the threshold. The light of the porch lantern did very pretty things to her hair, which made everything all the more difficult. “Nice work,” she whispered. “Now slam the door.”

“Oh no, I can’t slam the door,” Bungo whispered back to her. “That would be even worse than letting you in.”

“Well, then … close it gently but deliberately. And then meet me around back.”

Bungo nodded. “Good night, Miss Took!”

“Ooh, brilliant addition! Very dramatic,” said Belladonna as he shut the door — gently but deliberately — in her face.

Bungo stepped into the parlor, where his father was peering between the curtains to be sure Belladonna had left the porch — and was, indeed, minding the petunias on her way out.

“I’m proud of you, son,” Mungo said with a slap to Bungo’s back.

“Only doing the respectable thing,” Bungo said, and feigned a yawn. “Well, off to bed I go.”

A moment later, he was squeezing through his bedroom window, wondering why he couldn’t have just married a Bolger and avoided this mess.


	5. "Who could do this?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/post/178986623032/fictober-2018-day-twelve-who-could-do-this).
> 
> Influenced by [this post](http://tehri.tumblr.com/post/178911150122/bungo-belladonna-dearest-you-know-i-love-you).

“Who could do this?” Bungo wondered as he stood in the garden with his hands on his hips. “Who could behead someone’s sunflowers?”

Said flowers were currently scattered in the dirt around Bungo’s feet, staring up at their respective stalks like so many golden, traumatized eyes. He had come upon the gruesome scene after a trip to the market, and, in his horror, had very nearly dropped his basket of eggs on the steps.

“You said you were in the house the whole time?” He turned to Belladonna, who stood behind him clicking her tongue sympathetically.

She nodded. “Whoever it was, it was very bold of them. And in broad daylight!”

“I don’t understand. It wasn’t a burglary — they didn’t take the flowers.”

“Perhaps it was revenge,” Belladonna suggested, and Bungo’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his curls.

“Revenge?” he repeated. “Who would want revenge on us?”

Belladonna shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you.”

He looked back at the headless stalks. “I could never do something like this, even to my worst enemy. It’s just so …”

“Horrible,” Belladonna finished.

“Appalling.”

“Barbaric, really.”

“What if we had a child? How would we explain something like this?”

“I shudder to even imagine.”

Bungo sighed and started toward the house. “I suppose I’ll have to pay Holman extra this week.”

“Good thinking,” Belladonna agreed, watching him from the garden.

As soon as the door shut behind him, she hurried to where the roses grew beneath the kitchen window. Kneeling down, she grasped the wooden hilt peeking out from beneath the leaves and pushed the attached sword further under the shrub. 

 _Must find somewhere else to practice_ , she thought to herself as she brushed a yellow petal from her hair.


	6. "Go forward, do not stray."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/post/179437522782/fictober-2018-day-twenty-five-go-forward-do).

“Go forward, do not stray.”

“Belladonna,” Bungo said from the other side of the parlor carpet, “he’s learning to walk, not entering an enchanted forest.”

Belladonna let go of Bilbo where she had been holding him beneath his arms. “I see you’ve been listening to my stories,” she said as they watched the boy wobble on his furry feet.

“Careful if he falls,” Bungo advised. “And it’s rather hard not to. Half the words out of your mouth are a story these days, even if he can’t understand them yet — oh, oh, he’s walking! Keep behind him!”

The distance between mother and father was, in fact, hardly more than an arm’s length, so Belladonna didn’t have to go far to keep a protective pair of hands behind the boy as he teetered forward with pigeon-toed steps.

Bungo held out his arms, ready to catch his son when he reached him. “He’s walking to me! Look, Belladonna!”

“Yes, I can see,” she said, smiling.

Bilbo was only a step or two from his father — and his father was only a step or two from tears — when he made a sudden turn away from him and toward a nearby footstool. Or more specifically, toward a plate of freshly baked cakes on said footstool. 

Bilbo’s parents watched as he grasped one in his tiny hand and plopped himself down on the carpet to take a bite. Bungo (who had polished off three of the cakes himself not five minutes before) sat speechless on the floor, his arms still outstretched as if he expected Bilbo to realize his mistake and toddle back toward him at any moment.

Belladonna laughed, pulling Bilbo into her lap. “He truly is his father’s son,” she said, stealing a morsel for herself.


End file.
